


Radish Legs and Skinny Tails

by ruff_ethereal



Category: Big Hero 6
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-27
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-02-27 04:17:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 16,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2678798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruff_ethereal/pseuds/ruff_ethereal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stories about a surfer with radish legs and a mermaid with a long, skinny tail. Sometimes including their friends and a helpful white robot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Maw

**Author's Note:**

> Someone on tumblr wanted a mermaid AU.

The locals believed the waves never really stopped crashing against the giant stone wall of the Maw. “It’s always hungry,” They warned intrepid adventurers and daredevils, “It always wants one more ship, one more life dashed against the rocks.”

To surf the Maw was stupid, incredibly dangerous, and the few that had survived it had reported that it was one of the greatest waves they have ever rode, before they were taken away in chains.

Fred would have stopped GoGo from even going near the fence. Which is why the surfer hadn’t told him she was going.

Wire cutters made short work of the metal. She’d chosen a section that had already started to rust from the salty sea air. The cops would probably attribute it to wear and tear and slap another warning sign right over it. GoGo slipped in to the rocky outcropping, found a relatively safe place to shove off, and started paddling out to sea.

Some distance below the crystal blue waters were hundreds of rocks, jagged and sharp. There wasn’t much of a buffer between her and them if she went under. But then again, the surfer wasn’t planning on going under.

GoGo took a deep breath. Whatever happened today, she’d be the only one that knew it. No people yelling at her to stop, no cops pulling her out of the water, no earfuls of warnings. Just her, her board, and the gnarliest waves she’d seen in a long, long time.

The giant wave GoGo had wanted came to answer her challenge almost immediately. The surfer braced herself, while the Maw grew higher and higher. She rode the monster for a good minute, smiling as the giant wall of water roared behind her, so close, but not quite.

Suddenly, her board shook and trembled underneath her. GoGo swerved, fought to regain control, but it was far too late. The board slipped out from under her, rocketing back and up into the wave.

GoGo saw a brief flash of the sharp rocks beneath as the Maw sent her rocketing into them. There was a sharp pain in her head for a brief moment, a cloud of red just outside her vision, and suddenly, everything went dark.

* * *

 It was still dark when she woke up. It was also, wet and cold. On the bright side, she was on solid land.

“Hello?” GoGo called out. Her voice echoed back to her; a cave. And from the noise, one that was close to water, or even under it. _‘How did I end up here?’_ She thought, before a sudden shooting pain in her head interrupted.

“Gah!” Her hand flew up, and came back sticky. The surfer’s stomach churned, fearing the worst—but as she brought her hand up to look, she found it coated in something gooey, warm, but green. “Huh?”

She looked down. Her wetsuit was torn in dozens of places. Parts of them had been almost surgically cut open. The gashes, the abrasions, the punctures, all were slathered with a generous helping of green. She sniffed; it smelled vaguely of seaweed and octopus, with the barest hint of menthol.

It was then that she saw the eyes carefully peering at her, just underneath the surface. What little light there was in the cave was bouncing off the lens of her glasses. They ducked deeper below. GoGo pushed herself up, and headed towards the water.

She didn’t get too far. Only a few steps in and she realized just how badly she’d hurt herself in the wipe out. The world started spinning, her legs ached, the rest of her body screamed, _“SIT DOWN!”_ and she did. GoGo groaned, and tried to peer through the darkness and into the water.

“Hello? Please, whoever you are, just come out. I won’t bite, I promise.”

The pool of water started splashing and bubbling.

“It’s a joke! I’ve never bit anyone in my life!”

The head poked out of the water, just enough for her to see her rescuer’s eyes. She was blonde, she was glaring at her, and the surfer hazarded a guess that she was also scowling at her.

GoGo sighed. “What’ll it take for you to trust me?”

Her mysterious saviour sank back into the water for a good minute. She wondered if she’d fled—few could hold their breath for that long—till the blonde head popped right back up, a smug grin on her pink lips.

“Take off your clothes!”

_Ziiippp…_

It took some doing and more than a little shimmying, a few mild curses, and a lot of discomfort, but she got the wetsuit off eventually. GoGo even threw the discarded clothing off to her mysterious, perverted rescuer. It landed with a wet slap, one leg floating in the water, the rest of it within arm’s reach of the blonde.

The girl’s eyes never left the now naked surfer for even a second.

The human shivered from the intensified cold, but smiled. Ah, a classic dilemma of everyone who made a plan a few steps too short—the age old question of “What now?” While her rescuer processed this dramatic development, she examined herself.

The green goop had pretty much sank into her wounds. Whatever it was, it wasn’t anything GoGo had ever seen before, and definitely needed to get from this mystery girl. She had never felt this relaxed and healthy while bruised and cut up before.

Her wetsuit came flying back with another wet slap.

Her rescuer had taken a sudden, intense interest in one of the side walls.

“Put… put it back on, please.”

Eventually, GoGo got her wetsuit back on. It was still really cold sitting in the cave, but it was definitely better than being freezing cold, sitting naked in the cave.

“It’s on,” She said as she pinched and pulled the last crease into place.

Her rescuer finally turned her head back, and sighed with relief.

“So, I took off my clothes…”

The girl sucked the air right back in.

“Now will you tell who are?”

Her mouth fell open and the air steadily leaked out.

“It’s… it’s… Honey Lemon.”

“GoGo.”

They stood there in silence, just staring at each other.

“Can I at least see you? The rest of you? I want to look at the girl who saved me, especially if she’s already this cute from the neck up.”

Honey Lemon blushed. She turned away. Then, reluctantly, she finally pulled the rest of her out the water and onto the rocks.

The first thing GoGo saw was her bag. It looked made out of seaweed strands, and had dozens of pockets, all overflowing with dead fish, more seaweed, coral bits, and unidentified bits of gunk. It covered almost all of her chest, and it was actually wider than her extremely skinny body.

The second thing GoGo saw was, instead of a pair of long, skinny legs like GoGo had imagined her having, she had a long, skinny, peach-and-orange, fish-like tail.

She was a mermaid. A real, true to life mermaid. And GoGo had stripped naked for her.

Chalk _that_ one up to the history books.

Honey Lemon fidgeted, trying her best to maintain a look of calm, and failing badly. The surfer noticed her tail twitched and moved about the most—a mermaid’s version of shuffling your feet about, she guessed. It was rather adorable.

“Wow.” The human said, “And I thought you were just cute… you look beautiful.”

Honey Lemon completely, absolutely, and totally lost it. “Wait, what?” She said, her tail violently whapping at the rocks and the water.

GoGo smiled, and resisted the urge to laugh. “Really cool tail, too.”

The mermaid stopped moving. Her face had turned completely red.

The surfer stood up from the rocks, a little more slowly this time. She held out her hand.

“What’s say you and me high tail it out of here?”

* * *

Honey dropped her off at the beach. It was late on a weekday, few people around on the sands, even fewer walking around looking. GoGo got up and staggered around; spending a hectic half-minute on the back of a mermaid cutting through the water like a torpedo was awesome, but disorienting.

“Woah.” Was all the surfer said, before she turned back to face Honey. “Huh? Hey!”

The mermaid flinched. Her tail stopped mid-stroke, just about to send her rocketing back into the sea.

“Will I see you tomorrow?”

Honey Lemon turned back slowly, her features fallen and gloomy. “No.”

GoGo rushed forward, kicking up sand in her wake. She dove into the water, arms outstretched till they found an overflowing pack and squeezed hard.

Honey Lemon turned back, eyes wide open in shock. The surfer kissed her before she could say anything.

GoGo pulled away, grinning, releasing her grip on her captive. “How about now?”

The mermaid turned around at once. Long, skinny arms, stronger than any human’s pulled the surfer back in for the most intense kiss she’d ever had in her entire life. GoGo’s lips parted in shock, and Honey Lemon dove right in.

The water started to churn and foam as the mermaid’s tail thrashed about. The human gave a little playful flick at the invader’s tongue, and felt herself pulled in harder. The surfer grabbed her shoulders, ready to pull her off.

The mermaid finally broke away, the biggest grin GoGo had ever seen on anyone, human or merfolk, on her face.

“Tomorrow it is!”


	2. Soda

“You hungry?” GoGo asked, digging into her bag. The surfer stopped. “Oh. Right. Mermaid.”

Honey Lemon closed her mouth. “Yeah, I don’t really think it’s a good idea for me to be eating human food… though sodas are pretty much okay with me!”

“Really now?” GoGo asked.

Honey Lemon started nodding again. “A couple of humans camped pretty close to one of the piers, left all of their stuff there after they left—it was really rude… on the plus side, they had bottles of soda that had still had some in it!”

“And you just drank from it…?”

“’Course not! I wiped it down first. After that, it was pretty much the best thing ever~” The mermaid swooned.

The surfer nodded, smiling as she watched the water start to ripple and splash about. Just underneath the surface, Honey Lemon’s tail was swimming as fast as it could.

“I kinda miss it, though…” The mermaid mumbled, the water settling down once more. “Most everyone camps closer to the beach now, ever since they put up all those signs.”

GoGo nodded. “You want me to go buy you some?”

Honey Lemon blinked. “Wait, what?”

The surfer thumbed back to the convenience store a few blocks away, back at the more populated area of the beach. “If they were at the pier, they probably bought it over there. Even then, everyone on the island area pretty much stocks the same sodas. Only the prices are different.”

The mermaid crawled a little further into the sand and looked to the direction of said store. “Oh, of course you could…” She frowned. “How did I not… it was just… you’re a… ugh.”

GoGo patted her on the back. “Happens to all of us.”

“Thanks…”

“Can you remember anything about it? What was on the label, what the colour was, what flavour was written?”

“Oh, sure,” Honey Lemon nodded, “I’ve got a great memory! It was yellow and gold, had Sunburst written on it, and the flavour was uh… uh…”

“The flavour was…?”

“… Honey Lemon.” The mermaid deadpanned. “The flavour was Honey Lemon.”

GoGo nodded and turned her head to the convenience store. Though Honey Lemon couldn’t see it, she could tell she was grinning.

“So, was your nickname from food, too?”

“Yeah.” It was the surfer’s turn to deadpan. “My friend noticed I only ever bought GoGo gum.”

“What’s gum?”

“I’ll tell you about it later,” GoGo said as she picked up her backpack and stood up, “For now, I gotta go buy us some soda.”

Honey blinked again as she was hit with another belated realization. “Wait, of course, you’ll have to pay for those with money! Duh!”

“That a problem?”

“I can’t pay you back, obviously!” The mermaid threw her hands up into the air. “Your society doesn’t take clams… I mean, merfolk currency clams! They’re probably just literal, really pretty clam shells here.”

GoGo shrugged. “You don’t have to pay me back.”

“Well I’ll owe you something for this, then!”

The surfer paused for a moment. “Alright then. I’ll think of what I want on the way there. See you later, Honey.”

“Later!”

The mermaid dove back underneath the water. The human started walking back to the beach.

* * *

By the time the mermaid surfaced once more, GoGo was just half a block away, a cardboard box in one hand, six bottles of a familiar gold-yellow goodness shining within. She waved.

Honey Lemon returned the gesture, her tail doing in its own version in the water. She was foaming up a storm you could see a mile away, but she didn’t care.

The surfer settled back onto the sand, dropping the bag back into its old spot, putting the six pack near it. It was some distance away from the water, much too far for Honey Lemon to get to without dragging herself on the sand for a few feet. (While it wasn’t by any means painful, it would be awkward and arduous.)

“I figured out what I want from you,” GoGo said, gesturing to the six pack, “In exchange for this.”

Honey Lemon turned her eyes to the surfer’s face for two seconds before she started focusing on the six pack once more. So close, yet so far away…

“I want you to take off your backpack. Front pack. Pack. Whatever.”

“You want me to what?!” The mermaid cried, crossing her arms protectively in front of her.

Her eyes were firmly wrenched away from the surface dweller’s nectar and back to GoGo, before it went down to her chest. Her gatherer’s pack was still in front of her body, still wider and completely covering her upper body even barely filled.

GoGo flinched, blinked, and relaxed. “Why, is there some sort of mermaid custom about your bags or something?”

“No, it’s just a bag it’s just that—“ Honey Lemon groaned, her blush becoming more and more obvious. “It’s what’s underneath it.”

“Didn’t you already see me completely naked yesterday?”

“This is different!”

“How?”

_“It just is!”_

To her credit, the surfer just nodded. “So if you can’t—or won’t—take it off… can you at least tell what the problem is?”

Honey Lemon mumbled something under her breath.

“What?”

The mermaid repeated herself. Now she was saying indistinct words.

“I still can’t hear you.”

She groaned, blushed some more, and repeated herself a third time. Now GoGo could hear parts of it, but not all of it.

The surfer picked up a bottle. Honey Lemon’s eyes flew to it.

She slid it out of the six pack, and put her hands to the twist cap. The mermaid’s eyes widened.

Click.

"They're not very impressive, _alright?!"_

GoGo twisted the cap back shut, and slid it back into the six pack. “What’s not very impressive?”

“My—ugh!”

Honey Lemon splashed her hands on the water, before she dove back in. When she resurfaced, there was no more gatherer’s pack.

“Oh, wow.” The surfer blinked. “I thought the seashell bras were only in the movies.”

“The weaves are too expensive for daily use…” The mermaid mumbled.

“Honey Lemon…” GoGo smiled, “Are you embarrassed because you think your tits are too small?”

Honey Lemon looked away. “… Can I have that soda now, please?”

The surfer picked up the six pack, and laid it on the wet sand. Waves lapped at the cardboard.

“Thanks...” She reached over for one of the bottles.

“You can put your bag back on now, by the way.”

The mermaid’s hand stopped inches away from it, rocketed back into the water, and out again. Her gatherer’s pack was once more in its rightful place.

“I think that’s really, really cute that you think that…” GoGo said as Honey finally had a bottle in her hands, the cap twisted off.

The mermaid started pouring soda down her throat.

“… Because I think your tits are beautiful, just like the rest of you.”

It came sputtering right back up.


	3. Grocery Shopping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bringing laundry baskets for grocery shopping is a very easy way to speed up the process. Saves on space, too.

Fred casually paid for their groceries in cash. Normally, this wouldn’t be an abnormal sight on their part of the island, except the man had literally almost cleared out one of the aisles of the tiny supermarket.

“And seventy-five cents!” The man dropped the last couple of quarters on top of the fat stack of cash, most of it in the upper double digits if it wasn’t a hundred already. “And of course, for the employee tip jar.” He then proceeded to slip a twenty into it.

The clerk nodded politely and hurriedly started counting. The other clerk from the one other aisle watched the door, the girl in the newsstand watched the aisles. The latter toyed with something out of sight. Rumours say it was a rolled up newspaper, a gun, or a baseball bat. Whatever it was, she didn’t look hesitant to use it.

While they were wheeling Fred’s three carts out the door, GoGo put down a six pack of Sunburst, honey lemon flavour, and a pack of her eponymous gum. She was paying for it herself.

“You’ve been buying that stuff a lot lately.” Fred said as he stuffed the laundry baskets in back of the van with all of their groceries.

“That girl I met really, really likes this soda.” GoGo replied as she walked up to the driver’s seat, keys in one hand, six pack of soda in the other.

“Will I ever meet her, by the way?” The comic book geek peered from the side while he continued to load their stuff.

“No.” She put the key in with a firm shove. “Fred, you are my roommate, not my mother, stay out of my personal life.”

“Can I at least get a name?”

“No.” GoGo turned the lock, pulled the key out, and opened the door.

“Aw, come on? Just a hint? A letter?” Fred had turned his attentions to making it all fit. Presently, the laundry baskets were obviously overflowing and couldn’t contain all of their stuff.

“No.” The surfer set the bottles in the space between the driver’s and passenger’s seats.

“Well, whatever she’s actually called, I guess I’m just going to call her Honey Lemon.” The man said as he pulled out a few boxes of cereal, and tried out a new configuration.

GoGo took a little too long to climb in.

“Oh man, she’s actually called Honey Lemon?” Fred peered back out the side, and grinned. “Oh, that is perfect! It’s so cute!”

The surfer groaned and shoved the key into the ignition. “Just shut up and get in the car!”

The geek pulled back and admired his work. Save for the fragile, easily broken chips, nachos, and tortillas on top, the groceries had perfectly conformed to the shape of the baskets. He reached around to shut the back doors, and joined GoGo inside.

“I bet she’s really, really nice, too.” Fred mulled as they pulled out of the curb, “You can’t be named Honey Lemon and not be really sweet and lovable.”

The surfer blushed, and kept her eyes firmly on the road.


	4. White Knight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The original chapter was the wrong draft. To those that had already read it the changes are very minor, just a few wording changes and grammatical decisions.

Honey Lemon woke up. Her pack was gone. Everything hurt like hell.

She could hear the sea, waves crashing nearby. She opened her eyes, and wished she hadn’t.

The mermaid was trapped on the rocks. Exposed to the elements, pockmarked with jagged edges, and the sea too far away for her to make the crawl back. Light shown down on her, the sun only just starting its rise into the sky.

Honey Lemon raised her arm and—“AGH!” She pulled it back, hissing in pain. However she got here, it obviously didn’t involve getting gently laid out on the rocks. She was too busy with the throbbing pain to notice the strange, steady squeaking coming from nearby.

“Hello! I am Baymax, your personal healthcare assistant. I have heard your sound of distress—AGH!—and have arrived to aid you. Initiating scan…”

Honey Lemon looked up at the strange creature that stood on the crest. It appeared human-like in shape, except incredibly simplified, excessively rotund, and most definitely not anything she’d ever seen before.

“Scan complete. It would seem that you are not human, thanks to your extremely bizarre anatomy and biology. Unfortunately, I am at a loss of how to assist you. Is there anything I can do to help you?”

“Water!” The mermaid croaked. “Need… water!”

Baymax nodded. “I shall return shortly with bottles of water.”

“No! Sea!” She gestured to the ocean, and moaned in pain. “Back to the sea!”

“Ah. You require an underwater environment rich in salt.” The robot turned his head to the mermaid, then to the water. “That would explain why I have never seen a patient like you before on land. Please, remain calm as I come down to—oh no.”

Honey Lemon watched her would-be rescuer slip off the top of the rocks, and go bouncing down the jagged incline. He came closer and closer to the mermaid before he finally landed on his head. She did not know what that high pitched sound meant, but she knew that Baymax shouldn’t be leaking air out of all of those brand new holes.

Fortunately, the robot remained steadfast in his attempts to help. Even with his rapidly deflating body, Baymax righted himself. He did not stop to examine his wounds, only setting his sights on Honey Lemon.

“Oh no. I must hurry.”

It was then that the mermaid learned that Baymax was not fast.

“Get over here!” Honey Lemon cried as she crawled to the robot, dragging her body over the rocks, the stones making fresh cuts on her skin and digging into her body. She blocked out the pain and kept on moving.

Baymax bent down and held his arms out to pick her up. She reached over to grab him. The mermaid’s fingers slipped right off his vinyl coating. “Oh no. The mucous covering your body does not allow me enough friction or grip to carry you. This is unfortunate.”

“Try anyway!” Honey Lemon yelled as she surged forward and hugged the robot as tightly as she could. More air kept leaking out of his holes, her skin still kept slipping and sliding off the robot’s skin. ‘ _This is making one of the most awful noises above-or-below the sea!’_ The mermaid thought as she held on for dear life.

Baymax started walking. Honey Lemon’s arms just wouldn’t stay on the robot, constantly forcing her to grab and squeeze as the coating only got slicker and wetter. Her tail dragging over the sharp rocks didn’t help.

“I cannot go much farther.” Baymax said as he finally sank to the ground, almost completely deflated.

“This all I need…” Honey Lemon said as she threw herself off and back onto a fresh batch of rocks. She cried out, bit her lip, and started the crawl once more. _‘Come on, come on, just a little bit closer…’_

Splash. Her hand sank into the water, coming to a stop at the rocks just below. She surged forward as the waves started lapping at her head, the rocks starting to give way to open sea. She swam with her arms as soon as she could, and when her tail finally joined the rest of her in the water, gave a powerful kick that sent her rocketing off into the distance.

“Aaah…” Honey Lemon closed her eyes as she glided through the water, feeling her wounds knit, her pain fade away. Eventually, she swam to a stop and poked her head out of the sea. She turned back to the rocks.

Baymax had completely deflated, his skeleton poking through the vinly coating. His head still pointed out to the ocean.

“Oh no! Are you alright?!” The mermaid cried.

“I will be fine!” Baymax shouted back, “Are you satisfied with my care?”

Honey Lemon smiled. “Yes, Baymax! I am satisfied with my care!”

The robot raised one sagged, deflated arm up and waved. She waved back, then disappeared into the sea once more.

“Over here!” Hiro yelled as he climbed onto the crest, “I think I heard—woah, Baymax, what happened to you?!”

“I was treating a patient, Hiro.” The robot replied.

“Out here? Who—“

“Wait, Hiro!” GoGo said as she clambered up beside the teen. “I got this. You go help storm clean-up.”

“But Baymax—!”

She laid a hand on Hiro’s shoulder. “I’ll get him, okay? We don’t need more injured.” The teenager groaned, and reluctantly made his way back to the road.

GoGo climbed down to the rocks as quickly as she could. “Was she blonde?”

“Yes.” The robot replied, “She also had a very unique physiology, chief of which was a fish tail instead of legs.”

“Skinny?”

“Yes. Do you know this patient, GoGo?”

“Yeah, she’s Honey Lemon,” The surfer replied as she examined the deflated robot. His skin was covered in a familiar mucous, and dozens of slimy fingerprints. “Did she get back to the sea safe?” GoGo held her breath.

“It was a close call, but yes, she did manage to return to the sea, and was satisfied with my care.”

She sighed in relief. “Good robot.” The surfer patted Baymax’s head. “Let’s keep her existence between you and me, alright?”

“Will this help improve your emotional state?”

“Yes.” She pulled out her towel.

“Then I shall keep the existence of Honey Lemon a secret.”

A smile broke out on GoGo’s face. “Thanks. I’ll get you out of here, but first…” She started wiping the slime off Baymax, smudging the fingerprints on the parts that wouldn’t come off. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”


	5. Costume Party

Honey Lemon turned to the voice. She shrieked and thrashed about.

The giant mutant mudfish held his front fins up—and the mermaid quickly realized it wasn’t a giant mutant mudfish: it was someone in a giant mutant mudfish _costume._

 _‘You know, like everyone else at this party.’_ She thought. (Sans the "giant mutant mudfish" part.)

“Woah, sorry!” The man inside said, “Guess I shouldn’t have snuck up on you like that.”

“Yeah…” Honey Lemon said as her tail stopped whapping and the water in her sidecar/tank started to settle. “Your costume’s a little… shocking.”

“Not every day a giant fish says hello to you, yeah…” He flipped open the mouth of his costume, to reveal a blonde man with a monster themed beanie underneath. “And not every day I see someone with such a kickass mermaid costume! Seriously, you look absolutely amazing!”

Honey Lemon blushed. She realized he was probably just taken in by how “real” her “fake” tail looked, and how seamlessly the scales melded away into skin, but hey, a compliment was still a compliment.

“I really love what you’ve done with your top; so many girls would have just gone with the seashell bras but then you went with that. Pretty cool choice!”

Honey Lemon blinked. Now **this** was different. Her smile started to grow into a grin. “Thanks! I made it myself.”

“Must have taken a lot of work! That actual seaweed? Dyed? AND layered?”

“Nah, I do this every day.” The mermaid paused. “Costume making, I mean.”

They looked at each other, and smiled a little bigger. GoGo frowned.

“Fred, what are you doing?” The surfer in the sailor outfit said as she walked loaded up with several bottles of honey lemon Sunburst soda. Honey Lemon the mermaid quickly grabbed one from her girlfriend, and eagerly began draining the bottle.

“Just complimenting a gal on her amazing costume,” The man replied. “It’s not _illegal_ or unusual to do that.”

The sailor took a deep breath and sighed. “Right.”

“Geeze, you can get so overprotective sometimes! It’s kinda cute.” GoGo started simmering. “Uh, you know, if it weren’t for the fact that you could totally kick my ass seventeen ways to Sunday and all.” The ambient temperature started to drop back down to normal.

Honey Lemon took another bottle, dropping the empty one on the ground nearby.

“Anyway,” Fred raised his fin again. “Name’s Fred, if you hadn’t already caught that! You must be Honey Lemon?”

The mermaid used her free hand to shake it, however you could shake a giant mutant mudfish costume’s front fin. “That I am! I never realized GoGo ever talked about me.” She made another drop, and had a fresh bottle in her hands in seconds.

“I didn’t.” The sailor in question said firmly.

“Yeah,” Fred said, grinning, “She’s been totally secretive. Wouldn’t even have known your name if I hadn’t asked her about the soda you like so much!”

Honey Lemon shotgunned the last of her latest bottle to reply. “Yeah, she buys them for me all the time;” She dropped it off, and grabbed another from the rapidly diminishing supply in her girlfriend’s arms. “It’s really sweet~” The mermaid leaned out and planted a kiss on GoGo’s cheek as she twisted the cap open.

“I don’t think there might be enough bottles here to last the night with you around, heh.” The man-in-the-fish joked. “Can I have one?”

Honey Lemon’s tail started to slowly swish back and forth. The bottle in her hand was pressed against her chest. She bared her fangs at Fred and hissed.

**“No.”**

“Gotcha.”

The mermaid’s tail stopped and idled once more. The bottle was put back to her lips. She was back to sunshine and smiles as soon as it joined its drained kin on the floor. She picked up the last bottle from GoGo’s hands.

The sailor looked at her now empty arms, down at the floor, shook her head, and walked away for another run.

“You might want to slow down.” Fred said, pointing to the collection of bottles on the floor, “All that soda’s gotta go somewhere else eventually.”

“Pfft,” Honey Lemon said as she swallowed a mouthful, “Trust me, I know how to hold it in.”

“Well, good luck with getting your legs out of that tail when you finally need to, you know, though.”

“Oh, I don’t have any legs.”

They both paused. Discretely, Honey Lemon cast her eyes to the buffet table. GoGo was in a heated argument with the people manning the beverage counter. Her eyes wandered to Fred, who was staring at her tail with an expression of openmouthed horror.

“Oh… oh man…” He mumbled. The mermaid shut her eyes. “I am so, so sorry. I didn’t know you were… yeah.” She slowly opened them again.

Honey Lemon blinked before she realized what he meant. “Yeah… it’s a difficult life. On the plus side!” She had her tail do an energetic kick, playfully splashing water onto Fred. The man ducked and cheered as he got wet.

“Holy crap, I love that tail! I’d so totally get one too, if well…” Fred paused. He sucked in a breath, and cast his gaze to the side for a moment. “Uh, sorry, topic change: you from around here? I don’t recognize you.”

The mermaid shook her head. “No.”

“Tourist, huh? Figures. The most technologically advanced thing we have on this island is Baymax.”

“Baymax?” Honey’s eyes widened. “Big white fat thing, likes helping people?”

“The one and only!” Fred said, “I’m friends with his owner, Hiro!”

She sighed, closing her eyes and nodding. “I love Baymax.”

“Hard not to! Even if he weren’t totally huggable, squishable, and really friendly, he still helps us out a lot. The island’s got its own hospital, yeah, but pain doesn’t wait.”

“Trust me,” Honey Lemon shuddered, “I know.”

“You ever been treated by him before?”

“Yea—no, but I have heard the stories. Very useful.”

“Tadashi must be feeling pretty proud of him.”

“Could you pass my thanks on to him? I haven’t met him yet.”

Fred fell silent for a moment, his smile turning to a frown.

“Oh.” Honey’s smile turned into a frown, too. “I’m so sorry!”

“Nah, it’s cool!” The man in the fish costume waved a fin through the air, “With Baymax around, Tadashi’s never really gone.”

GoGo came back with a scowl on her face and another armload of bottles. “They cut us off.”

Honey Lemon automatically reached over for one. In spite of the notice, she chugged it just as fast as all the other ones.

“Anyway,” Fred said as he flipped the mouth closed again, “Pleasure meeting you Honey Lemon! You’re even nicer in person! Feel free to stop by _mi casa_ —that’s French for ‘front door’! I’m sure GoGo wouldn’t mind.” He gave them both the double fins and was off.

“It’s not French for ‘front door’—“ The sailor began.

“It’s Spanish for ‘my house’.” Honey Lemon finished. “English isn’t the only language that travels well in water, GoGo, don’t worry.”

The human heaved a deep, heavy sigh. “I’m sorry about Fred… he’s… Fred like that.”

“I don’t know,” The mermaid said as she put away her empty bottle and replaced it with a fresh one, “I kinda like him. And that offer to go to your house is pretty tempting.”

“Trust me, our house isn’t much to look at.”

Honey Lemon paused, bottle just up to her lips. “You know that only makes me more interested to go there, right?”


	6. Mi Casa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This Triple Feature was inspired by: inooceently, also known as The Pink Potato Queen.
> 
> Thank them for mentioning HoneyGoGo mermaid AUs, as I would never have written them otherwise.
> 
> In honour of this: requests?

“It actually helps me stay in the water for long periods of time,” Honey Lemon explained as she lounged on the brand new kiddie pool in Fred and GoGo’s backyard, “You know?” She lazily raised a hand up to the sunlight, letting them both see the slime on her skin shine, “Keeps me from getting pruney and shriveled up. It helps me swim faster, to boot.”

“Practical and pretty awesome!” Fred said, nodding his head. “Though wouldn’t it be easier if you just, I don’t know, relaxed _out_ of the water?”

“Freddie,” The mermaid said, giving a smile to the man across her, “If you had this:” She raised her tail out of the water, wiggling the fins about. “Would you really want to spend any time _out_ of the water?”

“Touché.” He replied, pointing at Honey Lemon. “I wish you could tell me where you got it, but yeah, everyone’s gotta have their trade secrets. Once it totally goes on the market for regular folks, sign me up for the early adopters, yeah?”

She sighed. “I’m not really sure it’s going to become a mass marketed technology any time soon, Fred.”

“True.” He nodded. “But what about your skin slime? You could probably sell huge batches of that stuff on the local markets here.”

“Who’d want to slap on a cold layer of mucous on their skin when they go into the water?” Honey Lemon asked, “Even if it keeps their skin supple and helps them swim faster?”

“Well, you could totally change that, couldn’t you? I mean, you already formulated this stuff, and it stays on for like, all day and doesn’t ever evaporate or dissolve in salt water—though the fresh water reaction really sucks, sorry again—”

“It’s alright.”

“You could make a warm batch. Less slimy. A coating, like a… boating finish, except for people.”

The mermaid blinked, and pursed her lip in thought. “You know… I think I actually could.” She sighed. “Ugh, I wish I brought my water-proof inks and papers with me.”

Fred thumbed back to the house. “I could totally get you a pen and paper from inside and write it down for you.”

“Aww…” Honey Lemon said, swimming over to the other side to plant a kiss on his cheek, “That’s sweet of you, Freddie.”

The man shivered and smiled. “Man, your lips are cold! Be right back!” He stood up out of the water and quickly hooved it back to the old, cheaply built worker’s barracks turned old, livable house.

He passed by GoGo along the way. She ignored Fred as he started rooting in the drawers and cabinets, and made her way outside to the pool.

“Still can’t believe he just bought this for you.” The surfer said as she padded up to the edge of the inflatable, dressed up in a pair of shorts and a tank top.

Honey Lemon giggled, and used her tail to splash water onto her girlfriend. “As we of the merfolk like to say: where there is space, and when there is resources, we shall build.”

“Easy for you to say, with over 70% of the planet at your disposal.” She said as she climbed in beside her, and put her arm over the mermaid’s shoulders. She couldn’t quite reach.

“True.” Honey said as she slid further into the pool, her body settling lower on the edge. Neither said a word as the surfer finally got her arm where she wanted it to.

“I found some paper and a pen!” Fred cried from inside the house, “What’d you want me to write?”

“At the top: slime coating for skin!” Honey Lemon dictated, “Directly below that: hagfish, octopus, and sailfish, all in bullets.”

Faint murmuring from the house. “Gotcha! Anything else?”

“Yes, actually: could you give me and GoGo a little privacy?”

“Oh, right, sure! If you need me I’ll be in the living room watching monster movies with the volume WAY up!” True to his word, the house was suddenly quiet save for the indistinct noises of one of Fred’s beloved monster movies.

“So,” Honey Lemon began, rolling herself on top of GoGo, “We’re basically alone… feeling up to it?”

The surfer blinked, and started to blush. “What? Are you sure? You know we’re still outside, right?”

The mermaid chuckled. “Do you humans really need this much privacy?”

“Don’t merfolk?” GoGo countered.

“Have you ever stopped to think about how open the ocean is? _Miles_ of space, spreading out in every direction?” The surfer fell silent. Honey Lemon leaned in closer, till they were face to face. “Also, you never answered my question.”

GoGo tried to raise her arms, but found them unwilling to obey. “Uh, I’m not sure, I—“

The mermaid closed the few inches between them, pressing her cold lips onto the human’s warm ones. The water began to churn and froth as her tail kicked and whapped about.

“Oh.” GoGo said as they pulled away. “You meant kissing.”

Honey Lemon giggled. “Of course I meant kissing! Did you think I meant…” The surfer looked away, blushing even harder. The mermaid put her lips right to her lover’s ear.

“For that, we tell everyone in the area in case they’d like to watch.”


	7. Seaside Showdown

“Look, Honey,” GoGo said as she picked up another loosely rolled roll of sushi with her chopsticks, “It’s the only seaside sushi bar I can afford.”

“Aren’t there better places?” The mermaid asked as she poked at hers. It crumbled into a loose collection of rice and sliced fish.

“Yeah,” Fred replied, “But they’re either A: further up in-land, or B: too expensive.”

Honey Lemon sighed and started scooping up her meal with her fingers. “I bet my friend could do a better job than this. He’s a fantastic chef.” She popped it into her mouth.

“Well, sweetie, I’m a chef, too.” Mr. Noh, chef/owner of the _Swim ‘N’ Snack,_ said as he walked back to the trio.

“Well, obviously you’re not a very good one!” The mermaid retorted.

Mr. Noh scowled, almost pointed at her with his knife, and used his free hand instead. “Sweetie, you watch your mouth, or you can go find a different place that has a swim-through!”

“Sorry.” The trio said.

“Better.” The owner walked away to go entertain customers at the in-land counter.

They spared glances at the other places on the Snack Shack Shore; none of them had a dock at the back that Honey Lemon could conveniently swim up to, and keep most of her body hidden under the water.

The mermaid scowled as soon as Mr. Noh had his back turned. Her tail started to swish. “He really can.” She whispered.

“Honey, you’ve got a look in your eyes;” GoGo said, “I don’t like it.”

“Thanks for treating me to lunch, guys, but I think I’m going to go dine elsewhere.” The mermaid removed her arms from the dock, “Fred, you can have mine.”

“Sweet!” The geek quickly scooped up her plate from the wood and laid it on the table he and the surfer sat at, “Thanks, Honey.”

“You’re welcome.” The mermaid chugged the remainder of her soda, and dived back under the surface of the water.

“She’s going back to the undersea kingdom to get her merfolk friend, isn’t she?” Fred whispered.

GoGo nearly choked on her food. “How did you—“

“She fell asleep in the pool once,” The geek replied, “Like, ‘under the water’ in it. I thought she’d totally drowned but then she yawned, stretched her arms, and turned over to sleep on her other side.”

“Huh.”

“Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. And GoGo?”

“What?”

“This is so totally awesome and romantic of you.”

The surfer kicked him under the table.

* * *

The merman scowled, and sighed. “For the record, I didn’t swim all the way up to the surface. I don’t know exactly what you did up there, or who you went to lunch with… but I still don’t like it. I’m not going to complain, because you still fill up your quotas, but…”

“But…?” Honey Lemon bit her lip.

“Our society thrives because we have systems. We have **rules.** And we try not to go breaking any of those, alright?”

“Alright.” She looked down.

“You’re free to do what you want with your free time. I can’t stop you. You do what you do… but please—for me—be careful.”

“I will.”

“Now, I know you didn’t just come back down here to see if I was spying on you, so what did you want?”

* * *

“Who runs this establishment?”

Fred and GoGo wondered if they should answer the large, scary black man with the bandolier full of terrifyingly sharp, glowing green knives. Honey Lemon joined him soon after on the dock, and did it for them.

“He does!” The mermaid said, pointing to Mr. Noh.

The owner turned around and scowled at the new arrival. The merman returned the favour.

The surfer and the geek looked at each other, then at Honey Lemon. “That’s your friend?” They both asked.

The mermaid beamed, and nodded. “Yep!”

“So,” Mr. Noh put his knife away, and wiped his hands on his apron, “You’re the guy blondie here was talking about?”

“Yes, yes I am.” The visitor looked him in the eyes. “Are you the man that’s been dissing the fish?”

“Wha’?”

“Your food.” He cast disdainful looks at the plates he could see, “Have you been making ugly, substandard food?”

Mr. Noh nodded his head. “O’ course! You try making good sushi then selling at these prices and see if you break even.”

The merman shook his head. “You make me sad, and angry, too.”

The two chefs glared at each other.

“You just came here to insult my cooking, or you come here to prove you a better chef than me?”

“If it will get you to stop wasting the lives the fish have given, then yes,” He raised his arm out of the water and pointed at Mr. Noh, “I challenge your skills!”

The owner gestured behind him. “Step into my kitchen.”

“I’m staying here.”

“Wha? Fine, Shinto Man, you do your crazy nature thing.” Mr. Noh threw his hands up. “I’ll get you a chopping board, bamboo roll, plates, and your ingredients— _raw,_ uncut. You already got your crazy fancy overseas knives.”

“I forged them myself, actually. Ultra-precision edge.” The merman explained, pulling out one of his knives to let it shine in the light, “And if I may make this challenge more interesting?”

“Yeah?”

“Winner keeps on making sushi.” He sheathed his blade. “Loser stops forever.”

The other customers chattered amongst themselves, pleased with this turn of events.

“Sure, fine.” The owner said as continued to gather the items, “We make very basic sushi! Rice, cucumber, ginger, avocado, and tuna, wrapped in nori; can’t screw it up even if you tried.”

“A test of raw skills,” The merman nodded, “I like it.”

“Oh man,” Fred said as he stood up from his chair, “This is totally like a samurai showdown! I’ll commentate!”

“Ooh, that sounds fun!” Honey Lemon added, her tail whapping underneath the water, “I’ll commentate, too!”

“Sweet!” The geek said as he settled himself near the kitchen, “Once Shinto Man gets set up, we can officially start this showdown!”

“Don’t call me that!” The merman cried. Mr. Noh set down his ingredients and plates in front of him, and he started checking them.

“Then what are we supposed to call you then?” Honey Lemon asked.

“Something not Shinto Man! AGH!”

“What happened?” Fred yelled.

“I spilled this green paste on myself!”

“That’s Wasabi.” GoGo explained.

“Hmm… Wasabi…” The geek mulled, “Sounds like a better name than Shinto Man.”

“Dude!” Wasabi cried as he washed the green paste of his chest, “That’s _even worse!”_

“Too late, you’re Wasabi now.” GoGo said.

The newly christened Wasabi grumbled and got one of his knives out.

“We gonna spend all day arguing ‘bout names or we actually gonna throw down?” Mr. Noh yelled as he unsheathed his own.

“I’m ready when you are, man!”

A sizable crowd had gathered. Some were sparing glances at the menu, others were just watching or recording the fight. Others still were betting.

“Alright then!” Fred said, raising his arm, “We’re all set: opponents, face each other and bow!”

Mr. Noh and Wasabi looked at each other, like two warriors about to duel to the death. They nodded once, and bowed.

“And now,” Honey Lemon continued, raising her own arm, “Showdown!”

The crowd erupted into cheers. Betting closed.

“And they’re off! Mr. Noh’s got his blade out, and he’s set to chopping up the ingredients!”

“Wasabi too! Woo, look at that blade slice! Have you ever seen anything that sharp?”

“No, I haven’t, Honey, and frankly it’s a little terrifying and plenty awesome! Oh, the owner hit a snag! His chop didn’t make it all the way through! Mr. Noh’s gonna have to saw the rest of that cucumber off.”

“No issues here—those ingredients are caught in a razor-sharp _slipstream!_ And the challenger’s off to his tuna!”

“But Mr. Noh is still on the vegetables! Will haste make waste, and slow and steady win the race?”

“We shall see! Both contenders have identical ingredients, the difference comes down to their knives and their hands! Who will make the better cut? Who will make the better sushi? Will it be Mr. Noh?!”

“Or will it be Wasabi?! No bones about it or in the fish, this is delicate work!”

“And yet the challenger is making it look completely effortless! Straight edged, cleanly done, almost like they came like that already!”

“Not over yet, though! Cutting up ingredients are one thing, but what about rolling it up into sushi proper? Mr. Noh is finishing up his fish, now he’s laying out his nori!”

“Wasabi’s already done! Perfectly aligned, too—not that you’d expect anything less at this point!”

“Mr. Noh is dishing out the rice! Gotta be sure to get that even coating of white and sauce!”

“The challenger has paused—he seems to be calculating the distribution of his!”

“The owner has no such compulsions! He’s got his ingredients all out in a line—time for the big finale!”

“Wasabi is laying his out, too! Perfectly straight! But, does his precision _really_ make perfect?”

“Mr. Noh is rolling! I repeat, Mr. Noh is rolling! He has laid out his sushi on the chopping board, and has his knife out once more!”

“Wasabi’s rolling, too! But remember, folks, this is no race to the finish! Is first place in time first place in taste?”

“Well, we’re gonna find out, aren’t we?! The owner has put his knife down, he is plating his rolls!”

“The challenger is just slicing up his! One, two, three, four, five, six! He’s done! He’s plating them! He’s plating them!”

“Oh, man, I know this isn’t a race but my heart’s pounding!”

“Mine too!”

“Mr. Noh has put his knife down! His arms are off the plates, he is done!”

“Wasabi has sheathed his! Arms in the air, he’s done too!”

“Moment of truth, folks! Unbiased opinions required: who here is the most frank, the most honest, the most detached judge in the room?”

“I’m dating her! It’s GoGo!”

“Wait, what?”

“Serving up Mr. Noh’s plate!”

“Serving up Wasabi’s plate!”

“The judge has both plates in front of her! This is Americasian cooking, folks, so let’s go by the key criteria!

“Number One: Form!”

“Mr. Noh’s looks like it always has. Kinda messy if you ask me, the tuna’s even sticking out of one of those. Wasabi’s looks pretty neat, like a machine did it.”

“Number Two: Presentation~!”

“Wasabi wins. The geometric design and the fact that every ingredient is facing some intended way looks pretty neat.”

“Number Three, and arguably the most important: TASTE!”

“She even has a plate of gari to make sure each taste is unbiased!”

GoGo sighed, ate Mr. Noh’s, ate some gari, and ate Wasabi’s. The room fell silent, the tension so thick you could cut it with either chefs’ knives.

“Drum roll please…”

“What’s the verdict, GoGo?”

“Wasabi wins.”

The crowd exploded into cheers. Bets were collected, photos were taken.

Mr. Noh and Wasabi turned to each other, and bowed once more.

The owner walked over to GoGo’s table, popped one of Wasabi’s sushi into his mouth, and nodded as he ate. “Well, you win, you keep making sushi, I stop forever. You don’t need to taste mine.”

“Told ya!” Honey Lemon said as GoGo handed her one of Wasabi’s rolls.

The merman nodded, a serene smile on his face. “You’ve been a fantastic opponent, Mr. Noh.”

“Thanks. You want to keep working for me, though? I’ll pay you.”

The victor nodded. “I’ll keep working so long as you provide the ingredients, and let me eat some of my work.”

“Will work for food, huh? Nice.”

“It’s actually so I can show these fish the respect they deserve.”

“Damn. You getting _really_ Shinto on me.” The owner shrugged. “But if it makes better sushi, who am I to complain?”


	8. Brainstorming

“What?!” GoGo yelled, “These prices are even higher than yesterday!”

“Expansion costs,” Fred explained, “See the new fridge? New tables? New… everything, really?”

“Wasabi’s a little too good, it seems…” Honey Lemon moped, shrinking back into the water after she saw the new price for Sunburst soda.

“It’s crazy!” Mr. Noh cried, plating up more of the sushi the merman had made hours earlier, “He come in, make truckloads, all gone before the day ends! Never enough! Now you gonna order something or make me go even crazier?!”

The trio shook their heads and departed, Honey Lemon sinking back under the water, GoGo and Fred taking their surfboards and paddling out to sea with her.

* * *

“The people really like my work, it seems.” Wasabi said as he watched the hustle and bustle at the Swim ‘N’ Snack a mile or so away. A barge full of tourists just stopped by the docks, and Mr. Noh threw his arms up into the air.

“Totally,” Fred said as he sat on his board, legs in the water, “You’d probably attract even more business if you worked there on-site and made them fresh.”

The merman shook his head. “Can’t. Sushi making here doesn’t pay my dues.”

“Well, why not serving them up live for like an hour after you make them?” The geek shrugged, “People go gaga over being personally served by the chef, especially if it’s someone like you.”

Wasabi looked at Fred and blinked. “Say what now?”

“Crazy knife skills,” The man cut through the air with his arms, “You’re a great cook, and pretty good looking, too! Got the hair, the face, and the shirtless chef thing going on.”

The merman stared at Fred for a long while. “Are you hitting on me?!”

Honey Lemon giggled. “Sorry.”

“Nah, dude,” Fred shook his head, “Just stating the facts.”

GoGo just smirked. “Okay, enough flirting, lover boys,”

“We are not--!”

The surfer ignored him. “Back to the problem: we lost our lunch hangout, we need a new one.”

“And the ones that me and GoGo can go to are in-land,” Fred continued, thumbing back to the higher points of the island, “Which you guys totally can’t get to.”

“Which means we’re either going to have to pony up to open a restaurant on the Snack Shack Shore just to have someplace to hang out,” Honey Lemon said, “Or we find some way for us merfolk to travel on land.”

“Uh huh.” Wasabi said. “And how exactly do we do that? I know from Honey Lemon you can definitely smuggle her to a costume party, and back to your pool at your house, but that’d take your crazy machines.”

“And no restaurant’s just gonna let a bike with a sidecar full of water into the property, probably; that, or charge us one hell of a sitting fee, not to mention gas, maintenance, trying to find a restaurant that has a door big enough to fit it…” Fred went on, counting off the points with his fingers.

“Doesn’t have to be a motorcycle and sidecar/tank, though.” GoGo mused.

“GoGo,” Honey Lemon laid her elbows on her girlfriend’s board, “Are you onto something?”

“What?” Fred said, “Like we get wheelchairs for Honey and Wasabi, and go play up the double paraplegic story again?”

“No,” The surfer shook her head, “Not wheelchairs.”

“What’s a wheelchair, anyway?” The merfolk asked.

“Oh, it’s kind of like a chair with wheels on it—it’s, like, what us humans use to get around if we can’t walk on our legs, and we move the wheels with our arms or someone pushes us.” Fred explained, miming operating the wheels of one.

“Ugh.” Honey Lemon cringed, “Definitely not wheelchairs, then; my tail may not be the prettiest but it is fast.”

“Exactly.” GoGo grinned. “And I think we can use that.”

“I thought you humans didn’t know merfolk existed?” Wasabi quipped, “Now you have vehicles for us?”

“We don’t. Which is why we’re going to make one.”

“Oh man,” Fred rubbed his hands together, “I can smell the science brewing already…”

Honey Lemon frowned. “Make one? GoGo, we’re pushing the boundaries of rules here severely already; you two aren’t supposed to know we’re actually mermaids right now, even.”

“We don’t need anyone else—I’m an engineer. Well, studied to become one.” GoGo said, “I can design the parts and build the vehicles.”

“I’m a chemist and a gatherer.” Honey Lemon continued, “I’m sure I can find some mixture to help with the process, especially with the constantly wet part. Scavenging for materials is what I do almost all day, too!”

“I’m a quartermaster, a chef, and an artisan.” Wasabi kept up the train, “I can keep things organized, work the merfolk materials, and make sure none of you hurt yourselves or worse in the process.”

“And I’m a science enthusiast with a lot of money!” Fred cried, triumphantly throwing his arms up in the air, “I can get us our facilities, our equipment, our snacks—but you’re on your own for clams, though.”

“Alright." GoGo nodded, "Looks like we’re all set—or will be. All in favour of a joint human/merfolk workshop/laboratory? Bump fists.”

They all raised up their fists, and met in the center.

“Oh man,” Fred cried, “We’re totally remaking the Nerd Lab on the island!”

GoGo blinked, and frowned. “Yeah… I guess we are…” She looked down at the water.

“Nerd Lab?” The merfolk asked.

“It’s a lab from my old school, it’s a long story.” The surfer waved her arm, “Let’s get paddling and diving, folks; get your stuff ready to move out. Fred’s crazy fast with these things.”

* * *

GoGo stared at the box full of mag-lev discs. Aside from a coating of dust from the years of storage, they were still as good as they were when she had thrown them in. She picked up the box and headed out her room and out the door.

Fred was already loading a number of necessary supplies and equipment into the back of the van—toolboxes, kitchen appliances, reusable mugs, plates, and cutlery. He smiled as he saw GoGo set down the box of technology for dusting.

“Heh! Seems like we really didn’t leave San Fransokyo totally behind, did we?”

“No.” The surfer replied as she put a cloth over her nose and mouth.

“Oh man, working with merfolk…” Fred mumbled as he started to rearrange the contents of the van, being extra careful with the mag-lev bike frame, “Totally worth moving onto this island.”

* * *

“Hmm, gotta take this one… and this one… probably not that one…” Jars, containers, and bubbles kept flying off Honey Lemon’s shelves, trunks, and clams, all being haphazardly arranged on every table and counter. Wasabi shrieked as he followed her, desperately trying to put them all into some form of order.

“Honey, we are not moving right this instant!” The merman yelled as he caught a glass-like bottle that sailed through the water, “You don’t need to rush! Slow down!”

“But I want to be able to start working as soon as possible, Wasabi!” The mermaid replied as she turned around and swam, putting some of the materials back in. “Agh, this is so exciting!”

“And stressful…” Wasabi paused his frantic arranging for a moment. “Honey, can I ask you a serious question?”

The chemist looked back, still smiling. “Yes?”

“Are you sure we can trust these guys with our technology? Who knows, they might all just be spies out to steal our tech—and us!”

“Pfft, you’ve been reading too many stories;” Honey Lemon waved him off, returning to her shelves, “Besides, if GoGo was really a spy, then she needs to take a serious remedial course on seduction…”

“Look, I’m just saying: it’s happened before.”

The chemist stopped mid-grab, and sighed. “Wasabi, you can stop with the paranoia and join me, or you can stay here while I work at the new lab, alone.” She turned around to face her friend. “What’ll it be?”

* * *

“Anything in specific, you two?" Aunt Cass said as she opened up the display case, “Or should I just start packing three grab bag boxes?”

“We’re in kind of a hurry,” GoGo said, “Second sounds good.”

“You even brought the van with you…” Hiro said as he looked out the window, “You guys moving to a new house or something?”

“Actually, Hiro,” Fred explained as he dug around in his shorts for his wallet, “We’re totally establishing a new Nerd Lab on the island!”

The teenager’s eyes lit-up. “Oh man, seriously?!” He jumped off the counter and was suddenly between the two adults, hands eagerly held up in front of him. “Do you guys have room for one more?”

GoGo and Fred looked at each other, and frowned. Hiro’s beaming smile started to falter.

The surfer turned around and placed her hand on the teenager’s shoulders. “Sorry, Hiro, we’re full, and, well—“

Hiro sighed, his shoulders drooping and his grin turning into a deep frown. “I get it, I get it, you need someone who actually has college experience… not just a high school graduate.” He turned around and started to walk way.

GoGo pulled him back and wrapped her arms around him as tight as she could.

Aunt Cass and Fred said nothing as the man paid for the goods.

“GoGo, got the boxes, time to go.” Fred said as he hefted up the three containers on the way out the door of the Lucky Cat.

The surfer reluctantly pulled away, before she rushed back and wrapped her arms around Hiro again.

“Last Hug?”

“Last Hug."


	9. Setting Up Shop

“Heathcliff told me all about it, and dad gave us the okay to use it,” Fred explained as he opened the main garage doors of the building with a remote, “It was used in an investment dad made some years back, and after they were done, no one ever wanted to rent it again, or buy the equipment, so here it just stood!”

GoGo’s jaw fell as the interior slowly revealed itself.

“It’s almost like it was waiting for us to use it or something, isn’t that pretty cool?” Fred continued as he drove the van in, and parked it at one corner of the incredibly spacious warehouse.

“I thought you said this was a boat garage?!” The engineer cried as she stepped out of the car.

“Well, yeah, I did!” The geek replied as he killed the engine and stepped out himself. “Well, at least, that’s what dad told me it was used for, anyway.” He looked up and whistled at the sheer extent of industrial equipment, rails, and fabrication tools he could see from the land side alone. “Must have been some serious boats they were building.”

GoGo tried to think of something sarcastic to say, and failed, walking and staring at the entire length of the building instead.

“Welp, gonna go let Wasabi and Honey in!” Fred said as he pointed the remote at second set of garage doors at the dock side, “They’re probably at the door right now!”

The sea entrance opened up, and the merfolk stopped dead in the water.

“Oh sweet Neptune, it’s even more amazing than I imagined!” Honey Lemon cried, squealing in happiness as she carted her lab equipment in on the undersea equivalent of a hand-pulled cart.

“What in the world is this place?” Wasabi yelled, still busy staring at the entrance.

“This, my friends, is our new Nerd Lab, right here on the island!” Fred replied, throwing out his arms and slowly rotating around in place, “The workers have already got all of your surface-sourced equipment set up, just like you asked me too!”

GoGo came back around, even more dazed and confused than earlier. “Fred, what the hell were they building here?”

The man in question shrugged. “I dunno, private boats I guess? I didn’t really ask too many questions.”

Wasabi swam up as far as the water would let him to, settling on the concrete line separating the two halves of the building, six or so feet away from the humans. “Didn’t ask any questions?! Dude, has it ever entered your head that this place is disturbingly well-equipped for heavy industry?”

Fred shrugged again. “When you reach a certain point in income, net worth, and property, you just kinda stop asking questions about what people are doing with their money and just nod your head, I guess.”

The merman groaned, shook his head, and carted off his own equipment to one side of the lab’s sunken section. Clear on the other corner, Honey Lemon was already busy setting up shop on her new shelves, and getting a feel of both her undersea and surface chemistry labs.

“Come on, people!” Fred clapped his hands, “Did we come here to wonder about this building or did we come in to make some science?!”

Honey cheered. GoGo and Wasabi just busied themselves with setting up their sectors, the engineer heading back to the van to start unloading her box of mag-lev discs.

“Thought you were building bikes for the merfolk,” Fred said as he picked up a box of kitchen utensils and plates.

“I am.” GoGo replied.

“Then what’s with working on the mag-lev bike again?”

“Just because I can make them a regular bike, doesn’t mean I will.” The engineer pulled it out of the van, and hefted it up higher on her arms.

Fred nodded. “Going all out with this project, aren’t you?”

“The mag-lev makes for a simpler, better design. Less moving parts, less components that could be damaged, more speed.”

“Well, good luck with that!” The geek said as they started to part ways, “Maybe you could go make a tandem bike so you and Honey can ride together?”

The box of discs shuffled and clattered. GoGo double timed her walk.

Fred suddenly set the box down on the floor and cried out. Everyone turned to him as he started rushing to a boxy building somewhere in the center. “I almost forgot! I was going to give you guys this stuff personally!”

The geek dove into the room, and emerged with a trolley loaded with several giftwrapped boxes, carting it over to the dividing line. “Got some presents for you guys!” He explained as he started laying out the boxes in front of their recipients—yellow for GoGo, pink for Honey, and green for Wasabi. “Probably going to make the work here go a lot easier! Wasabi, Honey, better open these first, heh.”

The priority gifts turned out to be long rubber gloves, in the same colour coding scheme as the wrapping. “Some new safety equipment for you guys!” He explained with a smile.

“But Freddie, we already have safety gear.” Honey Lemon said, gesturing to herself. She was dressed in the undersea equivalent of a labcoat and safety gloves, her glasses doubling as safety goggles.

“And I don’t think surface stuff is geared for merfolk equipment.” Wasabi continued. He was dressed in the undersea equivalent of long sleeved shirts, working gloves, and an apron.

“Not for this equipment, you’re not!” The geek continued, handing them all rectangular boxes. “Come on, open them!”

GoGo ripped open hers. “Computers? Really?”

“All water safe!” Fred beamed, “Well, mostly: I don’t know if they’re going to survive this much sea air exposure and slime, thus the gloves! Even comes with beginner manuals, though I think you guys are smart enough to figure it out on your own.”

“We already have these underwater, Freddie, but thanks!” Honey Lemon cried as she eagerly booted hers up.

“Oh. Well, as a bonus, we’re also getting internet installed here! You guys can totally use it for research, there’s almost no question they can’t answer!”

“Is that the same as the info-network?” Wasabi asked, “Because we have that underwater, too.”

Fred blinked, then shrugged. “Eh, figures! Not like the undersea folk are just going to let surface dwellers get all the fancy tech. I’m assuming you guys have phones, too?”

Honey Lemon immediately shoved her computer to the side, her tail thrashing violently in the water. “If that’s what I think it is, I’d like it right now, please!” The mermaid soon had a new pink phone in her hands, and immediately used it to take a photo of herself. She squealed in happiness, and eagerly shot back to her laboratory to take pictures of her set up.

Wasabi watched her go with a frown on his face. “Uh, guys? Doesn’t it bother you in the least that our tech seems to be incredibly similar?”

Fred shrugged again. “I dunno. Probably could have just been copying tech or getting inspiration from all the seaside places up in the surface. You guys have spies, right?”

The merman blinked, his eyes opening in shock, before he quickly relaxed. “I’m not allowed to say if we do.”

“They’ve got spies.” GoGo said.

“Sweet! Figures, if you’ve got like 70% of the world in your hands, you’re going to want to keep tabs on the other 30%.” The geek waved goodbye, loaded the discarded wrapping onto the cart, and walked off back to the kitchen/pantry/lounge/theater section.

“GoGo? Can I ask you a serious question?” Wasabi asked.

The engineer turned to him. “Sure, what?”

“Does it bother you in the least that this lab is _disturbingly_ well-equipped for a joint undersea/surface lab?”

“Hey, I’m just an engineer, not a spy;” GoGo shrugged, “I just build bikes. You got those materials for the frames I asked for?”

Wasabi groaned and mumbled something under his breath. “Yeah, yeah, should have it for in two hours or so; the plasma cutters Fred told me about are probably faster than anything I have back home.”

“See you in two hours, then!” GoGo waved goodbye and returned to her workshop, new computer in tow.

She glanced back at the rest of the warehouse as she set up her new laptop on a free table.

Honey Lemon was seamlessly moving between the underwater and surface chemistry labs.

Wasabi had no issue using the plasma cutters from the water, the control terminal easily within reach.

The office Fred had commandeered for his use was settled on the dividing line, with a window facing out to the water.

GoGo faced back to her computer and booted it up. She stared at the screen, muttering under her breath,

“Just an engineer, GoGo… just an engineer…”


	10. Sir Frederick vs the Beast of Boredom

“Hey, Fred,” GoGo said as she walked into the pantry/lounge/Fred’s office, “You mind telling me how you found out Honey is a mermaid?”

The geek nodded, and put down his comic book. “Sure, I’d love to! What’s with you suddenly wanting to know, though?”

The engineer sighed, and plunked herself down onto one of the free recliners. “My frames are going through weathering tests, and it’s raining outside. I’m stuck here whether I want to or not, and Honey Lemon and Wasabi are out today.” She sarcastically raised her hands in mock distress, “Please, Sir Frederick, save me from the evil clutches of the Beast of Boredom!”

Fred brightened up considerably. “Okay, so it happened just a few days after you first brought Honey to the house…”

* * *

Honey Lemon waved GoGo off with her pen. “Please, GoGo, you worry too much! Look, I’ve got all these,” She gestured to the stacks of books on her side, scientific papers on the other, and the notebook she had open on her lap, all underwater, “I’m going to be busy for a long while.”

The surfer sighed. “Fine. I’m going to be on my route for the next three hours, alright? You don’t have a phone so there’s no calling me, or Fred. Look, are you sure I can’t just drive you back to the sea? The bike’s still got gas in it.”

“GoGo?” The mermaid gestured for her to come closer. GoGo did, and Honey Lemon pulled her in for a kiss, her tail thrashing about in the water, her sharp fangs gently biting down on her lover’s lower lip. She pushed her away just as quickly, a smile on her face, a dazed look on the surfer’s. “I’m going to be fine. Trust me.”

GoGo staggered off, and mounted her bike, and set off from the house to the dirt road leading back to the main street, wobbling the entire way. Honey Lemon watched until she finally disappeared into the trees, and kept on watching till the sound of her bike grew too faint to hear.

The mermaid sighed, and picked up her notebook once more. She picked up where she left off, and started jotting down notes, hypotheses, and documentation for her various experiments below the sea.

It only took five minutes for her to stop, look around, and realize something was seriously wrong.

Honey Lemon looked up from her work, then to the house. It was quiet, the lights shut and the doors closed; Freddie’s van wasn’t even in the shed, since he took it with him for another one of his charity events on the island.

She looked around at the copse of trees that kept the place so hidden to the outside world. Tall, quiet, and peaceful giants guarding the place with their huge boughs full of leaves. She closed her eyes and tried to hear the animals in the forest, and got only a few distant chirps and half-hearted rustling for her troubles.

The chemist looked back down at her work, and found her hand suddenly didn’t want to write. She looked up and tried to find something to distract her with, and found nothing.

It was quiet. Too quiet.

Honey Lemon sank completely under the water and looked up at the bright afternoon sky. Had this been her lab back at home, it would have been noisy with solutions stewing, experiments brewing, and the hustle and bustle of her fellow merfolk outside.

Had GoGo or Fred not gone out today and left her completely alone, she’d be happily listening in to one of those old monster movies, asking for comments and ideas from her friends, or just have GoGo by her side, an arm around her shoulder as she worked.

Honey Lemon sighed. She casually blew bubbles and watched them pop as they reached the surface. It hadn’t even been ten minutes let alone three hours. And knowing Freddie’s past escapades to charity, the sun would be down by the time he drove back up that dirt path.

So, she did the only thing she could do: she swam to the other side of the pool, laid her head down on the rubber bottom, and drifted off to sleep.

* * *

“Unfortunately for Honey and Chuckles for Children, the clowns’ boat upturned. It was horrifying; they were all honking for help, and we all learned you just can’t swim with floppy shoes. Fortunately, their pants made excellent flotation devices so no one drowned, but the rest of the day was pretty much ruined. Nothing takes the cheer out of a clown like a near-death experience.”

“So what’d you do?”

“Well, first things first: I drove some of the clowns back to their hotel. Technically, they’d all fit in their car, but then they were all soaking wet, and they wanted some breathing room. You’d also be amazed at how well-behaved passengers clowns are! Still, the drive was only like thirty minutes, so I still had the rest of the day to burn. So I thought: MONSTER MOVIE MARATHON!”

* * *

 “Anybody home?” Fred called out as soon as he shut the door to the van. No response, so he shrugged, smiled, and headed to the backyard. Though they had a front door, the back entrance was the fastest way to the movie room.

He paused as soon as he noticed the perfectly good carton of honey lemon soda left by the side of the pool, just sweating under the sun. Fred shrugged, and walked on over, ready to put it back into the fridge to keep them nice and cool for when Honey Lemon came back to visit.

The geek had just picked up it up when he noticed the books, the notebooks, and pen laying under the water. Nothing strange about that: Honey had briefed her on how her water-proof office supplies also needed to be constantly soaked in seat water. He started to make his way back to the house before something glinted in the corner of his eye.

Fred walked over to the other side, and proceeded to drop the carton. His eyes opened wide in shock, and reached out to grab Honey Lemon before she yawned, stretched her arms, and turned over to sleep on her other side.

The geek blinked once. Then, his open-mouthed horror turned into a face-tearing grin. His hands pulled back, before he threw them up into the air in victory.

“OH MAN! HONEY’S A MERMAID!”

* * *

“Smooth move, Fred.”

“Hey, this was huge, man! All this time, at least one of the ‘fictional’ species actually exist! How did you react when you found out that mermaids were a thing?”

GoGo blushed. “I, uh… I… keep telling the story.”

* * *

“OH SWEET NEPTUNE!” Honey Lemon started thrashing about in the water, her tail sending liters of water flying out of the pool and right on Fred with each kick. Her glasses fell off in the ruckus and her arms uselessly splashed about, trying to find them. “No, no, no, no, no…” She mumbled, as she blindly groped about.

“Woah, woah!” Fred said, bringing his arms back down from the air, “Honey, calm down!”

“Calm down?!” Honey Lemon screamed, her kicking and flailing slowing down, “How can I calm down?! You know the secret! You’re not supposed to know! And I can’t see anything!”

The geek held the mermaid by her shoulders, and looked right into her half-blind eyes. “Honey… calm down, relax… breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out… okay, now that you’re finally calm… your glasses are right under you, under your left arm.” Honey frantically groped about for them, and put them on just as quickly. “There. You can see again, better?” Fred smiled.

Honey Lemon smiled back, and nodded. “Better. Thanks, Fred.”

“No problem.” The geek let go of her shoulders, “So does this mean, I get inducted into society of secret keepers now? Do I get a code name? Are you going to be my contact with the undersea kingdoms, or am I going to have to be assigned a professional spy?”

“Freddie…” The mermaid looked away, “That’s… not what happens.”

Fred nodded. “Okay, so what’s supposed to happen?”

“…I’m supposed to murder you.” Honey Lemon mumbled.

Fred blinked, and nodded, all while still smiling. “Oh, okay. So does this mean you’re going to drown me in the pool now?”

“What?!” The mermaid’s eyes opened wide in shock, “No!”

“Oh, so you’re going to snap my neck instead?”

“What in the—!“

“Tail whip, then?”

“FREDDIE. STOP!” Honey Lemon grabbed Fred’s shoulders this time, and stared right into his eyes, her lips curled into a scowl, “I am not going to kill you. I am not going to kill GoGo. I am not going to kill any human beings, if I have a say in it.”

Fred hummed, and nodded once more. “You know you’re being a terrible mermaid right now, right?”

Honey Lemon sighed. “Trust me, it’s nothing new; I’ve been a terrible mermaid for years now.”

* * *

“Say what now?”

“Oh hey, I think that ding was your equipment, GoGo!” Fred said, climbing out of his chair and looking out one of the windows of the room. “Yep, the fabricators are going back into the ceiling.”

The engineer blinked. She joined her friend at the window, looked out, and frowned.

Fred chuckled and patted her on the back. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell you the rest of the story next time.”


	11. Solutions and Answers

GoGo figured watching Honey Lemon’s first test in the new lab couldn’t hurt.

Then the test subject—a slab of pork—started to bubble and melt, the chemical coating turning it into a meat slurry, and the engineer found that it could.

“O-kay…” Honey Lemon mumbled as she took a picture of the soup with her phone. “Definitely not safe for use it seems…”

GoGo mouth fell open, her lips moving silently as her brain struggled to think of the right words. Finally, she turned to the chemist and asked, “Honey, what was _that?”_

“It was supposed to be my synthetic version of mermaid skin slime…” The mermaid replied as she sealed away the gruesome mess, “Though, it doesn’t seem to be as human-safe as I wanted it to be.”

“No worries, though!” Honey said as she pulled over an identical tub with a different slab of dead pig inside, “That was just the first test! I’ve still got two more prototypes! Let’s give it another go, shall we?” The chemist reached for a new beaker.

GoGo watched as she poured it onto the meat, and the whole thing turned blue.

Honey Lemon took a picture, picked up the slab, and dropped it into the water. It sank like a rock all the way to the submerged foundation below. “Hmm, works as intended, if not for the unfortunate side-effect of skin dyeing. Definitely can’t use that in mass production!”

The mermaid picked up the discoloured meat, placed it back into its tub, and sealed it. She pulled out a third test subject and a third beaker. “How is it you humans say? ‘Third time’s the charm’? I’ve got a good feeling about this one!”

Honey Lemon poured it onto the slab of pork. It immediately burst into flames, and just as quickly extinguished, leaving crispy golden brown skin and juicy white flesh in its wake.

“Well,” Fred said as he walked by and observed the appetizing failure, “At least now you know a way to make kick-ass roast pig in a hurry.”

“Don’t eat it, Freddie, it might be poisonous.” The chemist said as she snapped a picture, then sealed it, “Or it might combust again.”

“Well, that does it for my first series of tests.” Honey Lemon mumbled, trying to keep a smile on her face, “How’s your project going, GoGo?”

“Not so good.” The engineer shook her head as she let go and waded back to the ramp, “Still need to find a material that doesn’t corrode from all the salt water and slime exposure.”

“Merfolk materials not good enough?”

“When they start to break apart out of the water?” GoGo said as she sat down on the concrete incline, “Yeah, they’re not good enough.”

“Oh.” Honey Lemon blinked. “Wait, maybe I can concoct a chemical treatment to make the human materials more resilient to corrosion! Except I’ll have to make sure it’s non-toxic, won’t infringe on the structural integrity, or some sort of other negative reaction…”

“In other words, we need to use a human formula that we already know won’t harm either the bike, me, or you, or invent something altogether.”

The mermaid sighed. “Time to go hunting for more supplies, it would seem…” She pulled off her rubber gloves, and placed them on the dry counter.

The two of them paused, GoGo about to stand back up from the floor, Honey about to dive back to the underwater section. Both of them were staring at the rubber gloves, an item they had been using to safely handle surface materials and devices without getting them wet or drying the merfolk’s skin out.

They looked at each other, and shared a look that said, “Wow, we are stupid.”

“Coverings.” GoGo began, “Fabrics. _Clothes.”_

Honey slapped her forehead, a wet noise as moist skin hit moist skin. “Duh! Your wet suit! You’ve already had some way to increase your aerodynamics underwater, I just have to improve on that! And hanging out on the surface! I can make long dresses, pants, kimonos; hide my tail, an interior coating to keep the moisture in, a rubber layer for waterproofing and a cloth layer to have it—and have gloves to prevent people from feeling my hands or mucking things up!”

“I could even use it to cover up your transport. Hide the mechanisms, too.”

“Fred!” They both called out, turning their heads to his office.

The geek stuck his head out the window. “Yeah?”

“I’m going to need tailoring tools, sewing machines, and as many surface clothes materials as you can get, and a lot of uncut rubber!” Honey Lemon yelled over.

“I’m going to need wheelchairs, and wheelchair parts!” GoGo continued.

He gave a thumbs up. “And I’m going to go make some phone calls and place some orders!”

Honey looked at her tubs of pork, now sealed and ready for disposal in the incinerator, and then at the myriad of chemicals, lab equipment, and notes she’d compiled on human/merfolk biology. “Welp, that was a huge waste of time, work, and supplies…”

GoGo looked back at the gigantic recycling bin full of frames that had broken, shattered, corroded, or just plain wore away, then at the corkboard full of merfolk bicycle designs. “Talk about overcomplicating a simple problem.”

“Back to the drawing board?” Honey offered.

“I’m actually going surfing.” GoGo replied, “My gear’s at the house, though; gonna borrow the van.”

“Oh! How about we go on a drive together?” The chemist asked, “That sidecar can get pretty cramped!”

“What, you’ll just be hanging out at the back? You know what’s probably lurking on the floors, right?”

Honey Lemon shrugged. “I’m sure Fred will have a solution for this, too.”

GoGo rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right.”

* * *

“I can’t believe he had an emergency kiddie pool on hand, just like that.” GoGo said as they pulled out of the lab.

From the back of the van, Honey Lemon happily splashed about. “Hey, I’m not complaining! So, any ideas for conversation topics?”

The surfer shrugged and looked at her girlfriend via the rearview mirror. “I dunno. I don’t really do much except surf, work, the lab, and hang out. I’m not very complicated.”

The mermaid pursed her lip. “Hmm… I have an idea! Want to trade questions? I ask one, you ask another?”

“Depends. Can I say no if I want to?”

“Of course! I’m not interrogating you, GoGo.” Honey Lemon said with a chuckle.

“Okay. You go first, then.”

“You said you were studying to be an engineer, right? And from the way Fred kept talking about the original Nerd Lab, I’m pretty sure SFIT was a pretty big-time college.”

“You haven’t even read about it yet?”

“Not when there was chemicals to research and formulas to be made, no.”

GoGo nodded. “I made a promise.”

* * *

_“Hey Hiro.”_

_“Look, dude, we know you’re going through a really difficult time right now and we just wanted to say…”_

_“We’re here for you, alright? Always.”_

_“And Hiro? If I could have only one superpower right now, it would be the ability to crawl through this camera, and give you a big hug._

_“Yeah. Me too…”_

GoGo considered playing the recording again, and instead, put her phone back into her jacket pocket. She started putting her tools back into her shelves and drawers, and threw the latest batch of mag-lev wheels into the bin.

“Fred!” She yelled as she headed for the doors, “I’m heading out!”

“Wait, GoGo!” The mascot ran up to her, no mean feat while he was still inside the SFIT lizard costume. “Don’t you have class in an hour?”

“I’ve got more important things to get to.”

“You’re going to see Hiro, aren’t you?”

GoGo paused at the door, and stepped to the side, away from the flow of human traffic. “Look,” She turned back to Fred, “We haven’t seen him or heard a thing from him in weeks, alright? Someone needs to check on him, other than his aunt.”

The mascot held up his hands. “Woah, I wasn’t gonna stop you! Just wanted to let you know I can totally give you a ride there, if you want.”

GoGo blinked. “Oh… yeah, no, I’m fine, I’ll just take my bike…”

* * *

“Hello GoGo!” Cass waved from behind the counter, a smile on her face, “I’m assuming you’re not here for our special on peanut butter fudge bars?”

GoGo tried to give a smile back. “No, sorry. Is Hiro around?”

The café owner pointed up. “He’s upstairs, in his room!” She paused. “Like he has been for the past couple of weeks…” Before she could say more, a new customer stepped in through the door.

The two women shared a nod, and GoGo climbed up the stairs to Hiro’s room. She found him sitting on one of his beanbags, an uneaten plate of food on the window sill beside him.

“Hey Hiro.” She smiled at him.

Hiro looked up, and blinked. He didn’t smile back. “Hey GoGo.”

The engineer sighed. “Hiro, you need to get out of this room.”

The teenager remained silent.

GoGo walked into the room, looking at the thin layer of dust on undisturbed belongings, and the divider curtain drawn over Tadashi’s section. “You want to go out and enroll today? I can help.”

“I shredded my acceptance letter.”

GoGo blinked. She walked up closer till she was a few feet away from Hiro. “I’m sure they can make an exception for you. They had footage of Callaghan giving it to you, right? Before, you know.”

“What’s the point of me going, anyway?” Hiro stood up from his beanbag, and walked over to his desk, where Megabot rested. “It’s not like there are any ideas in my brain anymore.”

“Hiro, don’t say that.” She raised her arm to reach out to him, before lowering it. “You invented the Microbots, didn’t you?”

“And the fire destroyed them all. And you know what? It wasn’t even my idea.” Hiro picked up his battle bot, and held it out between them. “It was Callaghan’s. All I did was—“

The bottom third broke off, on a straight course for Hiro’s foot. GoGo caught before it could land.

The rest of Megabot was carefully set back onto the desk. “Nice catch.” Hiro squeaked.

“Thanks.” GoGo set the detached third back on the table. She turned back to her friend, a frown on her face. “Hiro… you can’t just stay here forever. You need help. Professional help.”

The teenager sighed. “I know.”

“Want me to go help you look for a shrink?” She stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder, “Downstairs, of course.”

Hiro sighed again. “I guess…”

* * *

“Then what happened?”

“Hiro got a therapist. I took him there myself on my bike, the first month. They don’t come cheap, though, so they sold most of his equipment in the garage. Megabot was donated to the police.

“But, the money ran out. Before he stopped going, the shrink suggested that they move as a last resort, because they thought Hiro couldn’t recover if he was still in San Fransokyo. Too many memories. And well, after an entire year of no progress and… a whole bunch of other stuff I don’t want to talk about… everyone was getting a little desperate.”

“So he and his aunt moved here?”

“And me and Fred came after them. We said we would be there for Hiro, and we were.”

“So you just became his surrogate siblings, huh?”

GoGo fell silent, just driving for a moment. “Yeah, I guess we did.”

“That’s awfully sweet of you two, GoGo!”

The surfer blushed.

“Okay, that answers that, but why this island, out of all the places in the world?”

“Three reasons: one, it’s far away from civilization and any trace of San Fransokyo; two, it’s cheap to live here; and three, whatever Fred’s family likes to call it, this is still basically their personal vacation island, they just let other people live on it.”

Honey Lemon blinked. “Fred’s family owns this island?”

GoGo nodded. “He doesn’t make a point of telling others unless he needs to.”

The mermaid nodded. “Geeze, I must owe you like a dozen answers right now. Any burning questions in your head?”

“Did you know Fred told me the story about how he found out you’re a mermaid?”

“He did. Where’d he stop?”

“The ‘terrible mermaid’ part.”

“Gotcha…” Honey Lemon nodded, “Well, a mermaid is supposed to live by some three key rules. And all in the course of one day, I broke all of those.”


	12. Three Rules, Zero Regret

“Come on, come on…” The pink, well-used blade kept hacking and chipping away at the shellfish, but it would not let go of the rock it called its home.

“I have a debts to fill, you know!” Honey Lemon yelled at it, “And it’s not exactly safe to be here! Plus your little buddies over there _aren’t_ helping!” She cast a glance to her left, the shellfish larger and more abundant, but the space between the surface of the water, and the jagged rocks below uncomfortably close.

The knife kept on digging, before finally, the mermaid gave up. “Ugh, sweet Neptune, I’m arguing with a shellfish.” Honey Lemon sheathed her blade into gatherer’s pack, “What am I _doing_ with my life?” She shook her head, and carefully swam away from the rocks and back to safer, calmer waters.

 _‘My pack’s already overflowing with all the necessary ingredients for tonight and my quota; I’ll make up my deficits another today. For now: it’s people watching time!’_ The mermaid thought as she swam to the more populated areas of the beach, by her favourite hiding spot, a patch full of seaweed where she could easily be hidden, and a quick escape would be thought a trick of the eye or the current.

_“Rule one: you are not to go near the surface to observe or watch the humans, except for spies.”_

Honey Lemon peered up to the surface, smiling as she watched the tourists and the locals milling about. The mermaid smiled as she saw a yellow bicycle over at the parking lot. She knew only one surfer who owned that bike, a rather unforgettable human being thanks to her black hair with the purple streak, pale skin, those muscular thighs, and that aura of calmness and confidence she always exuded.

Honey Lemon looked around at the beach, scanning for any sign of her. Not there, which wasn’t strange; the surfer rarely spent her time shopping in the one convenience store or just relaxing on the sands. The mermaid turned back around to the water, looking for that distinctive silhouette, and still found no sign of her, nor her usual buddy, a lanky blonde man.

Honey Lemon frowned. The surfers couldn’t have paddled that far out to sea. The mermaid cast a glance once more at the dangerous waters, the fenced off section the locals seemed to call, “The Maw.” There was a sinking feeling in her stomach. The same feeling she relied on to know when a storm was coming and it was high time to go home, when she shouldn’t add that one ingredient, when that shark was best left uneaten.

Honey darted out of cover and started making her way back to the treacherous waters, alternating her sight between the land and the water, carefully guiding herself with her hands over the rocks and the increasingly shallow water. She stopped as soon as she saw a familiar figure dropping a bag by the fence, then pulling out a pair of wire cutters.

The mermaid turned to the crashing waves off into the distance, and then back to the surfer, her surfboard nearby. “She’s not going to try and ride the Maw, is she…?”

As she crawled through the hole and dragged her equipment with her, Honey Lemon swam after her, biting her lip as the water became shallower and shallower, and the pointed rocks closer and closer to her body.

She found the shellfish she had been chipping at earlier had finally come loose from all the stress. It would have easily come off with a little more prying, and Honey Lemon could be off and back to home to hand off her gatherer’s pack and the mollusk to the quartermaster and be done with this whole day.

Then she found the surfer steadily making her way back down to the water, the raging waters of the Maw hungrily lapping against the rocks. The mermaid bit her lip once more, and started making her way there even faster.

The human started paddling out to sea, and the water was starting to churn and roil. As she waited out by the sea, a massive wave started to form, heading right towards her.

_“Rule two: you are to leave all shipwrecks, boating accidents, and drowning persons to their fates. No saving them.”_

She was floating in the water, wetsuit ripped and torn, gashes all over her body. Her surfboard had dashed against the rocks, cracked and ruined. Blood poured out of her wounds, an especially thick cloud at her head.

Already, a second wave was forming, even larger than the first, as if the Maw wanted to make sure it would do the job this time.

Honey Lemon swam over the Maw’s teeth. She ignored the rips and tears in her bag, valuable ingredients and supplies spilling back out of the water. She ignored the gashes in her arms, the scraping on her tail and the sensitive fins. She ignored the ominous rumbling getting closer and closer, and the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

The mermaid grabbed the human’s arms, threw them around her shoulders, twisted around, and rocketed off back to the beach.

The wave crashed against the rocks, the water churning and foaming as if it were a growling beast, angry at being denied its prey, but Honey Lemon didn’t look back.

_‘Safe, safe, need to find somewhere safe…’_

She spotted the entrance to one of her favourite moss caves, cast a glance at her passenger, and dove right into the cave, surfacing as quickly as she could, breaking the surface with a giant spray of water.

The mermaid laid the surfer out on the rocks, just by the water. With a little pressing and pushing, the human started coughing and hacking water. Honey Lemon watched and waited, and sighed as she started breathing again—shallow, and laboured, but still alive.

Honey Lemon examined her wounds—still bleeding, still serious, blood pouring out of her head, and her hair sticky with red. Honey Lemon panicked, threw sea water over the injuries to wash them, before she dug into her damaged pack and pulled out her healing salve.

She paused for a moment. _‘Is this even going to work?’_ Then she shook her head, opened the container, and started slathering it on as thickly as she could over her injuries, starting with the gash under her head. She forced her fingers under the rubber of her wetsuit, before she just pulled out her knife and started carefully cutting the clothes open.

When she ran out of salve, Honey Lemon pushed herself out of the water, climbing up to the rocks. They were dull and wet, making it easy to move. She grabbed the unconscious human— _‘still breathing, no more bleeding, thank goodness’_ and dragged her as far up as she could.

Then, the mermaid crawled back into the water, waited just underneath the surface, and waited.

* * *

“I could have left. The cave wasn’t that deep underwater, and if you climbed further inland, you’d get out somewhere just outside the Maw. But I couldn’t. If I left I’d always be left wondering if you died or lived, and you know us scientist types: we just have to know.

“And then we made that deal, and I broke rule number three: never to reveal the existence of our kind to humans. The rest I’m pretty sure you know.”

“Not all of it: why’d you ask me to take my clothes off? Why not something else?”

Honey Lemon sucked in a huge breath. “Well… you see… I was trying to find some excuse to get out of there and I had the bright idea of asking you to get naked. You know, because you humans value your clothes so much, and wouldn’t just do it for a total stranger…”

GoGo smirked. “And you really liked what you saw, huh?”

The mermaid slowly sank into the shallow pool of water.

“This van doesn’t have any windows in the back, you know. Neither is this road very well-traveled.”

“Still want to go surfing?”

“No.”

“Want to go find a—“

“NO!”

Honey Lemon chuckled. “Fine. We’ll do it your normal, _boring_ human way.”

* * *

“I’ve managed to miniaturize those plasma cutters of yours!” Wasabi declared, happily showing off the quarter-of-a-blackboard sized apparatus, “With a little magnetic confinement for ultra-precision. Watch.”

He threw a fish through the grid of lasers, and they came out on the other side and onto a plate in perfectly symmetrical, cleanly sliced sashimi.

Fred clapped. “Woo! Pretty sweet work, ‘Sabi! Gonna save you a lot of time at the surface job, huh?”

“You bet. Speaking of which,” The smith-turned-physicist put the plate into a neatly organized, waterproof cooler, “I have to go back to the Snack Shack Shore. You fine here?”

The geek gave him a thumbs up. “I’m good!”

The merman swam out the garage doors leading out to sea, and Fred closed it after him. Long after he was gone, and he was sure that GoGo and Honey weren’t going to come back rolling in anytime soon, he pulled out his phone and made a long distance call.

“Hey dad. Yeah, the others are totally rockin’ the old lab, thanks so much for letting us use it!

“What? Nah, none of them have a clue. Hey, I learned from the best, right? Still sucks I can’t tell them everything I know, though. Yeah, it’s for the best.

“Hey, has anything come up yet? About Tadashi and Callaghan? No? Alright.

“I know. I know. But some part of me feels they’re still out there, somewhere. Maybe here on the surface, or maybe somewhere down below, in some super-secret evil villain lair! Like all we need is something like a compass pointing us in the right direction.

“I know. Yeah, probably gonna have to get one heck of an excuse to borrow his last Microbot. Maybe if we can find some way to get him into the lab, too. Yeah, it’s for the best.

“And dad? Before you go? Thanks too for, you know, keeping Honey, GoGo, and Wasabi safe. You’re probably like, the Tribunal’s least favourite human ever, and they must give you flack for it every day, but you still do it.

“Yeah, the two of them just headed out to go surfing, actually. Yeah, they make a great couple.

“Bye dad. Love ya. Hope you can get back from San Fransokyo soon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it ends. I realize doing disjointed one shots in a single story format does not benefit me much, mostly because they tend to evolve into a plot that I'm not sure I should do.
> 
> I spent the longest time preparing a dramatic finish to this, but that would just beg a sequel and I don't really feel up to my own dramatic fight scene and character interaction skills.
> 
> Thanks for reading this fanfic, folks. It means a lot to me, your comments and kudos.
> 
> There may be more stories about these two and maybe another mermaid based universe, you never really know with art, and especially my brain.


End file.
